This invention relates generally to brewing tea and more specifically to a disposable cartridge containing tea for use with a drip brewer wherein a high temperature liquid is passed through the cartridge thus brewing the tea.
The brewing of tea is generally achieved by passing a high temperature liquid, i.e., water (approximately at the boiling point) over dried tea leaves which, when wetted, expand approximately four times in volume in the wetted state as compared to the dried state. Tea leaves require sufficient contact time with the high temperature liquid, to permit proper infusion of the liquid into the tea leaves, not merely passing of the liquid over the leaves. The tea leaves also need room to expand for proper brewing while in contact with the high temperature liquid to permit the tea leaves to steep in the liquid.
In preparing brewed beverages, automatic drip brewers have become widely accepted for their convenience, ease of use, quality of brew produced and speediness in operation. Automatic drip coffee makers are very common and prevalent in homes, restaurants and institutions. At times, such automatic drip-coffee making machines have been used in brewing tea due to the ready availability, convenience, ease of use, etc., of such machines. Yet, tea requires slower brewing than does coffee, and automatic drip coffee makers tend to pass the hot water through the brew basket too quickly for effective tea brewing unless they have a restricted orifice in the brew basket. Even then, there is the problem of tea leaves and hot liquid overflowing the top of the filter. If tea bags are used in the brew baskets of automatic drip coffee makers, hot brewing liquid will tend to bypass the tea bags and provide a dilute and inadequately brewed beverage.
It is known to provide automatic drip brewing machines specifically designed for brewing tea, which machines are intended for commercial and institutional use in brewing large quantities of iced tea. Such automatic drip tea brewing machines, while more suitable for brewing tea than machines designed for brewing coffee, still fail to provide the potential advantages as suggested herein. Thus, even in the context of the automatic drip brewing machines designed for tea, the need exists for an improved brewing process and improved tea packaging. It is an object of the present invention to fulfill these needs in the contexts of all types of automatic drip brewing machines.
An important advantage could be obtained by combining with the advantages of automatic drip brewers the additional advantages of the tea bags. Tea bags provide the user with pre-measured amounts of tea leaves enclosed in discrete, convenient-to-use parcels which also provide the filter medium for effecting brewing. As already discussed, however, ordinary tea bags are not suitable for use in automatic drip coffee makers.
In the brewing of coffee, pre-packaging of ground coffee in the filter medium has met with only limited success. There is a problem of oils from the ground coffee seeping into and saturating the filter paper or other filter medium prior to use. Also, approximately triple the amount of ground coffee, by weight, is required to produce a given volume of brewed coffee, as compared with the amount of tea leaves required to produce the same volume of brewed tea. Thus, because coffee is relatively voluminous, ground coffee prepackaged in a filter medium has entailed compression of the ground coffee into a solid mass to minimize its bulk. In such arrangements utilizing compressed ground coffee, the filter medium is tightly bound around the compressed ground coffee. Such packaging would not be suitable for tea, because tea needs to expand considerably during brewing, as already described.
The potential for convenient and consistent brewing of tea utilizing an automatic drip process has heretofore remained unrealized. In particular, the special suitability of tea for pre-packaging in a filter medium which takes the form of a cartridge for an automatic drip brewing machine has been overlooked in the art, as has the potential for creating a disposable tea cartridge which may accommodate the considerable expansion which tea leaves undergo when they steep in hot water during the brewing process.
What has also been overlooked in the art is the potential for providing prepackaged, non-tamperable cartridges for brewing tea in automatic drip brewing machines. In this regard, the brewing of tea creates a need for ensuring that a correct measure and blend of tea leaves is consistently being supplied, just as with tea bags, but in the context of brewing tea utilizing automatic drip brewing machines.
While high liquid temperature is necessary for the brewing process, it later becomes a problem where the brewed product is to be used for iced tea. The high temperature of the freshly brewed tea melts the ice too quickly. To avoid this, the tea may be allowed to cool. This requires a substantial amount of time so that the freshly brewed tea is not immediately available for use.